Goodbye Until Forever
by K Kelly
Summary: Jamie and Cathy are on the same timeline (like "The Next Ten Minutes"). An alternate ending to the heartbreaking Jason Robert Brown musical, it immediately follows "Nobody Needs to Know". WARNING: Character death


**Mmmkay so I usually only write Newsies fanfiction, but I LOVE L5Y sooo much!**

 **This is sad and dark, sorry but that's the truth. It goes back and forth between Cathy and Jamie's perspectives the switch between POV is indicated by "...". I hope you like it, and please review if you want more L5Y fanfics!**

 **Enjoy**

 **DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of these characters or original storyline they all belong to the incredible Jason Robert Brown**

"I'm watching him being with her, lying in bed and I don't want to believe what I'm seeing… I didn't know you could still cry when you're dead."

...

He comes through the door like any other evening after one of his "business trips", but something is different. Usually Cathy is either working on her latest craft project or curled up on the couch, but tonight she is nowhere to be seen.

"Cathy? Sweetie?"

He winces at the term of endearment, saying it out loud feels like a lie.

"Cathy, I'm home."

Still no answer, he shrugs and walks toward their bedroom. _Maybe she's at an audition and forgot to leave a note?_ He figures that's probably the answer so nothing could prepare him for the sight he sees when he walks into their bedroom.

"My God! Cathy!"

She is lying crumpled face down next to the bed with a large gash in the back of her head. He rushes to her side and gently he turns her over. But one look at her lifeless eyes confirms his worst fear.

"No please no… Cathy you can't leave me like this, please! I need you!"

...

"Oh Jamie, don't cry your faithless tears over my body. I didn't leave you, you left me. You had a nice night with Elyse what do you need me for? Cook your dinner? Keep house? Did you ever really love me, Jamie?"

...

"Dear God, this is my fault."

He looks up in a gesture of desperation, "I'm sorry this isn't what I wanted. I just wanted to feel loved again, to be hot and passionate. But this…I never wanted this."

Still glancing upwards towards the heavens, he starts yelling, "I loved her! I swear I did!"

His voice drops and he murmurs as he gently closes her eyes, "Cathy, I swear I loved, no… I still love you right now. I'm sorry I wasn't here to hold you, I don't even know what happened. Even now I hate to tell you where I was. I felt like you weren't giving me what I needed so I found it somewhere else, but Cathy I was wrong, I was so stupidly wrong. You were everything I needed and everything I still need. You are my muse, my Shiksa goddess, my wife. How can I go on without you Cathy?"

"You seemed to go on just fine without me Jamie. You and Elyse have much more in common. Just keep telling my corpse how much you love me, just keep lying to me Jamie. You always said you loved me, but did you ever once mean it?"

Cathy is suddenly surprised by a sight she never saw before, not once in their marriage.

He starts crying, and Jamie Wellerstein never cries. Not when disaster strikes, not when they used to fight, not even when he's writing a heart-wrenching section of his book. He remembers telling Cathy that one of his high school girlfriends broke up with him because he was "stone-hearted". But, now kneeling over his wife's dead body he is crying, wracking tears, that shake his body and blur his vision.

"Maybe you did care? Just not enough to be faithful, but I guess you cared a little. Even though you don't love me as much, I still love you Jamie and I always will."

He hears a knock on the front door, he cannot bear to leave Cathy's side again even for an instant. Instead he shouts with a cracking voice, "Come in the door's unlocked." He could care less who it is. No one could possibly hurt him more than the sight of Cathy dead and alone can. Not a nosy neighbor, a robber, an axe murderer, not even…

"Jamie? Where are you? Is Cathy home? I wanted to talk to you about the preview party tonight…"

If he had known it was Elyse he would have feigned sickness or absence, or ANYTHING to prevent her from seeing him like this. Everything is slipping from his grip faster than he ever thought it could.

"Elyse just go away! We're through, leave me alone."

"Through? Jamie what are you talking about? We've hardly started! Are you sick of me already?"

"Get out."

She pouts playfully, "You didn't say please. Where are you?"

"Elyse please leave, now."

"Is Cathy home? Cathy I'm just here to pick up his latest draft for edits."

"DON'T SAY HER NAME."

Silence falls for an instant, then he hears the unmistakable sound of footsteps outside his door.

"Jamie what's wrong? Are you in there? I'm coming in."

"Please…"

The door swings open before he can finish. Her eyes widen as she absorbs the scene in front of her. Jamie holding Cathy's body with tears running down his face. Hot, unchecked tears.

After the initial shock she manages to whisper, "What happened?"

He just shakes his head slowly. He has no idea what happened. He knows she hit her head, but for all he knows she could have been murdered.

"Is she?"

Jamie's silence is answer enough.

"Well maybe it's better this way…now she never has to know what you did."

"Better? Elyse how could you say that?"

Elyse rolls her eyes, "Jamie you are or at least you were the married one. I wasn't being unfaithful to anyone. But if anyone cheated on me with a girl as hot as me I'd be pretty broken up."

Jamie grits his teeth and purposefully avoid her gaze, "It could never be 'better' this way. It wasn't Cathy's fault, it was mine."

"That's not what you said before."

"Forget what I said before, whatever it was, was meaningless. _Everything I said was empty and meaningless._ "

"Do you want me to make the call or are you going to do it?"

For a moment he doesn't answer just looking at Cathy's deathly pale face and thinking absentmindedly that she is still so beautiful.

"I'll make the call, hand me the phone…Hello 911? This is Jamie Wellerstein I just came home from a business trip and found my wife d-dead on our bedroom floor. Yes, I'm sure. No I don't know how long. There is a large gash on the back of her head. I'd prefer to do it here, no I'm alone."

He looks pointedly at Elyse and she reluctantly walks herself out the front door.

"No, her parents don't know yet. Alright thank you. The door is unlocked."

The phone slips from his fingers and hits the carpeted floor with a muffled thud.

...

"Of course she shows up now. At least Jamie told her to leave… Still he was with her last night and now he's crying over me, he certainly wasn't crying over me last night, while I was bleeding out alone and scared. Jamie why weren't you there? You said that you would always be there for me, but when I needed you the most, when I needed you to hold me and comfort me you had your arms wrapped around another girl…"

A curt knock on the door shakes Jamie from his state of disbelieving stupor.

"Mr. Wellerstein?"

"Come in the door is open."

The whole 911 team wasted no time in doing just that. Suddenly Jamie was being bombarded by tons of questions he had no answers too. But worst of all one of the paramedics was easing Cathy from his arms.

"Please, let me hold her a little longer."

"I'm sorry Mr. Wellerstein we need to take her temperature and assess her injuries."

"She's not breathing I'm not stupid I know take someone's pulse. I'm telling you she isn't there!"

"Sir, please calm down. We understand how difficult this, but we need to figure out the cause of her demise and in order to that we have to run some tests and such."

If he wasn't crying Jamie would have laughed at the irony of the situation, Cathy always _hated_ doctors. He remembers her saying that she wanted a midwife when they had a baby and if she ever got sick with some long-lasting fatal disease she made him promise that, 'you won't let them put me through a string hellish treatments no matter how sick I am. I'd rather die happy and in pain wrapped in your arms, than drugged up, alone, locked in a hospital room'. It had pained him to even consider that possibility, but he had promised her that he would never allow it no matter what. Now neither of them had that choice, even in death Cathy was as unlucky as ever.

The paramedics are finally done running their tests, "Sir we understand if you don't want to know, but since you are her husband" he winces at that word, _some husband I am abandoning my wife, cheating on her._

"…we can release the cause of her death to you". At first he doesn't even bother responding. He looks over and hates them even more for covering her beautiful face, he wants to look at her for as long as he can before she's taken away from him forever.

"No, I'd like to know what happened."

They nod and start reading off a list of diagnostics in that hateful, cold, emotionless voice,

"Name: Cathy Wellerstein

Age: 27

Date of Death: 6/13/06"

Jamie interrupts them, "Wait that's today's date? She passed today?"

"We can't be exact with times, but she passed approximately within the last 24hrs. Mr. Wellerstein you don't look well are you sure you want me to continue?"

Wordlessly he nods.

"Cause of Death: Combined head injury and blood loss"

Again he breaks in frantically, "How was she injured?"

"Again we can't be certain, but it appears to have been a freak accident. She rolled out of bed and hit her head hard on the night table. She might have been knocked unconscious or unable to move, but whatever happened she received a serious head injury and lost too much blood. There may have also been internal bleeding from a concussion, but we can't be sure without running more tests at the hospital."

Jamie can feel his heart sinking even lower and the lump in his throat gets bigger, but he still dares to ask the question, "If someone had been there, would she have been okay?"

"Mr. Wellerstein I really don't think that question is…"

"Just answer me, if someone had found her before her blood loss was critical could you have saved her?!"

"Mr. Wellerstein…We can't be certain, but from the looks of the wound if she had medical attention it's possible she would still be alive."

He can feel the room spinning beneath his feet a voice distantly calling out his name. But not the way she would. No one has ever said his name like she did and no one ever would again. He adored her and she loved him, but he had done something horrible something unforgivable. Now, this happened and he can't take back what he did what he said or even what he had been planning on doing. Just last night he had been planning on walking out on her forever and now all he wanted was for her to continue being a part of his life forever. But now she can't and it's his own fault. He looks at her with five years of love, passion, and regret in his eyes "Cathy, I killed you."

...

"I think I'd rather die physically than emotionally Jamie. You would have killed me either way, you said that could never rescue me, but maybe you didn't have to, maybe I just needed you to be there for me. You were like one of those selfish high school friends we used to have. You remember the ones who told you they were 'listening', but all they wanted to do was be a hero and rescue you from your problems. But all you really wanted was someone to listen to you rant and hug you and tell you it's going to be okay even if they're not sure. I needed that, but you never did that Jamie. I told you how frustrated I was with summer stock, but you never wanted to listen you just wanted to give me advice. I didn't need advice I needed love and support. I didn't want Backstage subscriptions and job ads, I wanted you. I wanted you to hold me and kiss my neck and stroke my hair and tell me everything was going to be alright because we were the one thing in this twisted world that wasn't going to hurt! But, you never did. You thought sex was the answer. You always wanted something from me, but you never gave me anything in return. Can't you see why I pulled back Jamie?

And I'll admit that since you didn't listen to me rant about my problems I had no desire to listen to you go on and on about your success. I was proud of you Jamie I always am and I always have been, but every time you came home with an invitation to another party starring: Jamie Wellerstein. I was reminded how there were not any plays or musicals starring or even featuring: Cathy Weller- I mean Hyatt. I could have dealt with the occasional party, but Jamie there seemed to be one every single week! And I could have listened to you talk about how well your book was selling for a while, but it seemed like all you ever wanted to talk about. And maybe I did the same thing to you, maybe you thought that all I ever did was complain. Maybe that's the truth and maybe you felt the need to brag as much as I did to complain.

But do you remember how when you're best friend got his dream date to the prom and he would rave about her and go and on good naturedly because he knew you were going to be there with your date too? Or how that same friend would wave off the importance of the Homecoming dance and his date if he knew you weren't going? That's what we should have done, and maybe if I had listened to you brag and you had listened to me rant once in a while we both could have eventually found new things to talk about. But instead we ignored each other and kept slipping farther and farther away. And now I'm gone and even if I wanted to I can't come back. But I still love you Jamie, no matter what happens and how stupid it is I still love you and I always will.

 **Well what did you think? Now I bet your going to go listen to "If I Didn't Believe in You" am I right?**

 **If you read and review this I might write more, who knows?**

 **K. Kelly**


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